maille making

[MattBower]

I have a couple young cousins who're into SCA and that sort of thing. Apparently they've made some maille, but they were complaining that they have trouble cutting rings at a decent clip without deforming them. I was thinking of trying to make them a tool to make it go faster. I'm just not sure what such a tool might look like (although I had a couple ideas), and I was wondering if any of you experienced maille-makers have any suggestions.

[bigfootnampa]

The rings are just jump rings same as you'd use for jewelry fittings or whatever. I like to wrap the wire on a wooden dowel and then slice it with a cut-off wheel in a Dremel. You can even power wrap if you fit the dowel into a drill (variable speed works best). I have overwrapped with masking tape when needed to secure the wraps through the cutting process.

[MattBower]

Yeah, I've heard of using a cutoff wheel for this. That'd solve the problem of deforming the rings, but isn't it a little slow if you're making thousands?

[bigfootnampa]

Yeah, I've heard of using a cutoff wheel for this. That'd solve the problem of deforming the rings, but isn't it a little slow if you're making thousands?

I guess you are right when compared to industrial tooling costing thousands of dollars yes. The Pepe jump ring maker is widely considered top drawer for small shop type work and basically is a deluxe version of the process I have described. Pepe jump ring maker
It costs around $150 plus you have to buy a Foredom tool to saw with.

Other methods of cutting the rings are clipping with wire cutters (MUCH slower) and sawing with a jewelers saw (also MUCH slower). High powered robotic saws are WAY faster but the start-up costs spiral beyond reason unless you are a major manufacturer. Small saw blades instead of grit wheels offer slightly improved performance at a reasonable cost though for steel rings they have a much smaller advantage than when cutting non ferrous (softer) metals.

[j.w.s.]

It's going to be slow, but it's chainmail - not exactly a hobby for the impatient - however, you can buy jump rings online by the lb. I just did a quick search and found 1lb stainless for $16 (1100 rings) and 1lb (4000 rings) aluminum for the same and lower.

[ThomasPowers]

Tell them to make riveted maille where slight deformation on the ends won't matter much after the flattening!

[MattBower]

Tell them to make riveted maille where slight deformation on the ends won't matter much after the flattening!

Heh. I like that. "See, you guys think you're working too hard. But the real problem is that you aren't working hard enough..."

That said, I do kind of get the sense that some of y'all may have gotten the wrong idea about this. These guys already make maille. It's not that they're teenage slackers, sitting around refusing to try because it's too hard. (They are teens, but they don't seem to be slackers.) I thought I'd see if I could come up with any ideas to make it easier on them, because they're family and because it sounded like it could be interesting. That's all!

[ThomasPowers]

Well back around 1980? I saw a rig where a fellow had taken an old lawnmower, removed the blade and mounted a commercial dryer pulley to it and then a small electric motor with a 2" pulley and then took off the head and used the head bolts to fasten one arm of a cutter to the engine and had the other fastened to the piston. With the pulley reduction he got a safe speed on the cutters and the torque to cut fairly heavy rings.

He could then just feed in the coils as the cutter cycled automatically. You still got the cutter deformed edges though.

When I was making my shirt I was a poor college student and couldn't afford good cutters and didn't know hot to dress them to keep them cutting with minimal deformation. So I kept tightening the bolt that held them together and it finally got to where I could close them one handed but it took both hands to open them again!

Well I was at a bar one night in west Texas, remote area---the kids had a 90 mile bus trip to and from school each day---and a rancher was there and feeling pretty good and wanted to "howdy" with me. When we shook hands he started squeezing---so I "clipped a link" and his eyes started to bulge and he stopped trying to squeeze my hand and offered me a job on his ranch instead. I was on my way to Houston for logging geologist training so I turned it down; but those cheap cutters sure bought my way into the "crowd" that night...

[wshelley]

I've made a little over two million rings and counting so I have a bit of experience to share ;-) My recomendation is to get an arbor, a thin (I use .008" thick) small diameter slitting saw, and make a simple jig to guide the coil through the saw. An inexpensive drill press provides the power.

Here is a link to my website with pictures and a better description: http://www.wardscorner.net/maille.htm

Feel free to ask questions, I'll be happy to help.

Ward

[bigfootnampa]

I've made a little over two million rings and counting so I have a bit of experience to share ;-) My recomendation is to get an arbor, a thin (I use .008" thick) small diameter slitting saw, and make a simple jig to guide the coil through the saw. An inexpensive drill press provides the power.

Here is a link to my website with pictures and a better description: http://www.wardscorner.net/maille.htm

Feel free to ask questions, I'll be happy to help.

Ward

I really enjoyed your web site! I am very interested in your anodizing setup. I am pretty sure that the "little grey fox" in your Yosemite album is a coyote though. Growing up in Idaho as a young man I was a scourge on the local fish and wildlife populations and have always had a soft spot for the coyote. Now that I live in Missouri we have both here but a grey fox family lives very near and sometimes eats my chickens. One with a bob-tail came out and sat in the pasture to watch as my wife and I rested in the garden... I thought he was a bobcat at first. He didn't stay long though as the guineas saw him and went right after him (they have some sharp eyes and always pay attention). I think they might have been lucky though as my border collie "Scotty" saw where they were going and decided that they might need a little backup. They do look similar especially if the coyote is a young one but have some subtle differences and slightly different fur. My son almost caught one of the foxes here a couple of years ago... it was snowing heavily and he came right up to the house and took a hen from their roost on the handrail of our footbridge. He was having a bit of trouble subduing his victim and in the snow my son was just a few feet away before it saw him... I think Lukas was glad that it finally did as he was starting to get anxious about what to do if he did catch it! That one was a young fox and the hen was nearly as big as he was (though less fierce). Lukas felt bad about driving him away from his dinner with all the rough weather and all... but the fox came back in a couple of days and took that hen and another besides so it seems he ate heartily after all.

[wshelley]

@bigfootnampa - Thank you for your interest and the story about the fox. I keep forgeting to correct that caption, I was told by someone at the time that it was a gray fox and didn't do my fact checking. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the anodizer.

Ward

[bigfootnampa]

@bigfootnampa - Thank you for your interest and the story about the fox. I keep forgeting to correct that caption, I was told by someone at the time that it was a gray fox and didn't do my fact checking. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about the anodizer.

Ward

Thanks Ward. I do have some questions on the anodizer and the process and applications. I will start another thread though so as not to get too far off topic here.

Clay

[Don A]

How were the holes made for the rivets in riveted maille (traditionally; early period)?

And what would have been a normal wire guage and ring diameter?

I would think that the riveted maille would have to be quite a bit heavier than a lot of the contemporary stuff you see.

Seems this would be a very labor intensive job.

[ThomasPowers]

The holes were made with a punch and as modern testing has shown riveted maille is about 10 *times* as strong as butted mail and so most modern maille is much heavier than the original stuff!

[Jason @ MacTalis Ironworks]

As a guy who has done restoration work for museums and private collections, I can give you the real down and dirty of how maille was made in period times. There were actually about a dozen or so methods, but the most commonly used method of riveting was to make a couple pair of tongs or pliers. The rings would be cut from the coil with a slight overlap, and placed in the first set of tongs which would have a recess in them shaped roughly like a football, with an opening on either end for the unflattened part of the ring. Then whack the things with a hammer on an anvil, and you have a perfectly overlapped ring with a flare that extends to the interior of the ring. The second pair of tongs would have a tiny chisel in them, again elliptical and quite sharp with a recess opposite so that this chisel could punch through without damage. Again, line up and tap with a hammer. This would drive the chisel through the overlap and form a slit. I forgot to mention that it is critical to stress relieve your rings after flatting, as the metal does tend to work harden. The rivets themselves were of flattened wire which they would cut small isosceles triangles from. Insert into the slit point first, the large end wedges, and you use another pair of pliers with a small divot in each face to peen the rivet. It was also somewhat common to use alternating rows of riveted and welded rings or rings cut from a tube or punched from a sheet. This would save the armorer the hassle of riveting every single ring in the piece as forge welding is considerably faster than riveting rings closed. There were a fair number of variations on these techniques, including but not limited to freehand flattening and punching the rings. This is one of those topics that I can an have gone on and on about for hours on end, so I'll save you and just leave you with the basics. Additionally, as a side note. Period riveting methods are considerably faster than using a drill press in my experience, but I never really did come up with any satisfactory jigs for drilling rings.

[ferrum mancer]

You can just purchase rings on line made for making maille. The Ring Master has handy stuff. There is flat rivetd maille being made in India and is available from various armor dealers.